Lunar: The Silver Star
:::“A Boundless Love Story. An Epic Adventure. An Instant Classic.” Lunar: The Silver Star is the first game of Lunar series. It developed by Game Arts and Studio Alex for the Sega Mega-CD console. Originally released in Japan on June 16, 1992 to critical acclaim, the game was translated and released in English by Working Designs the following year. Designed as a "different kind of RPG",Lunar: The Silver Star made use of the up-and-coming disc format by featuring CD-quality audio, video playback, and voice acting to narrate a fantasy story set in a magical world. As the number one selling Mega-CD title in Japan, the game sold nearly as many copies as the system itself, and remains the second highest-selling Mega-CD title of all time. The first game in the Lunar series, it set the standard for other follow-up titles, and was followed by a direct sequel, Lunar: Eternal Blue in 1994. Since the game's original release, two enhanced remakes have been produced for various systems: Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete, the remake version in and '' in 2002. '''Plot and Settings' Much of the plot of Lunar: The Silver Star was written by novelist Kei Shigema, and involves a world of high fantasy and magic with emphasis on folklore and legend. The game takes place in the fantasy land of Lunar, a small habitable world orbiting the massive, barren Blue Star, forming a loose parallel between the game's world and the Earth and its moon. Centuries before the start of the game, the Blue Star was rendered unlivable by years of war and reckless use of magic. The powerful and benevolent Goddess Althena relocated humanity to the Silver Star, the world of Lunar, and entrusted four dragons to safeguard the elements of the new world. From this point on, those who would use the power of the dragons to serve the goddess and protect the world were known as "Dragonmasters", and no such Dragonmaster was more revered than Dyne, a legendary hero who defended the goddess and succumbed to an unknown fate. The stories surrounding Dyne's exploits would form the life model for a young boy named Alex, the game's protagonist and central character, who also aspires to become a Dragonmaster himself. Many of the locations of Lunar: The Silver Star were given a deliberate "northern" feel to present an environment that was cooler than the settings of most role-playing games, if only to allow the characters to wear more clothing. Many towns and locations were based on areas of Russia and Medieval Europe. The Characters *Alex Noah *Nall *Luna Noah *Nash Rumack *Mia Ausa * Kyle *Jessica de Alkirk *Ramus *Tempest *Fresca *Myght *Quark *Dyne *Mel de Alkirk *Lemia Ausa *Ghaleon *Xenobia *Royce * Phacia Story'' '''The Adventure Begin' The game begins in the small mountain town of Burg, where a young Alex frequently visits the monument to the fallen hero Dyne the Dragonmaster, his idol. At the behest of Ramus, eager son of the town mayor, embarks on his first real adventure with his friends Nall and Luna to the mysterious Dragon's Cave in search of a valuable dragon diamond. Making their way through the cavern, they meets Quark, an aged dragon who senses great potential in and urges him to complete the trials of other dragons to became the next Dragonmaster, champion of the goddess Althena, and protector of the world. Quark also give Alex the Dragon Ring to honor his succession of the trial. Quark shows interest in Luna as well, remarking that she has a familiar aura about her. Obtaining the Dragon Diamond from Quark, Ramus finds he cannot sell it in Burg, and must travel to the major trade city to claim his fortune. Journey to Meribia On their way to Saith, the bridge to Saith has been washed out by river. So Alex and the others must fetch the axe that has left behind in the shed in Weird Woods by the logger to fix the bridge. They meet a traveler Laike in the woods and fetch the axe back to the logger to fix the bridge. While waiting the bridge to be fixed, they head back to the Burg. And then, they finally reached the Saith, a small port town. Unfortunately they can't sail they can't sail to Meribia because the Captain lost his sea chart. They also meet Nash the Magician and the apprentice of Ghaleon of Four Heroes. He's on his way on an important mission from Ghaleon himself. He notice that they can't sail to Meribia so he invites them to join him to find the sea chart, by exchange his Water staff, the staff of flowing water which is no use to him. Alex agreed to join him. Meribia because the Captain lost his sea chart. They also meet Nash the Magician and the apprentice of Ghaleon of Four Heroes. He's on his way on an important mission from Ghaleon himself. He notice that they can't sail to Meribia so he invites them to join him to find the sea chart, by exchange his Water staff, the staff of flowing water which is no use to him. Alex agreed to join him. The group are finally in Old hag's house, which rumor said that she has the sea chart. In exchange of the Water Staff, they got the sea chart and give it to the captain. But the Captain forgot that he can't sail because the lighthouse has no lights on, ever since monsters are making home in there. And at last they reach the top level and lit the lighthouse with a flint given from the Captain. As they're succeed, Luna begin to feel proud of Alex as he become more courageous than ever, since they're growing up together ever since they're a child. When they're finally reached the docks to set sail, Luna must bid farewell to Alex. She made up her mind to stay with Alex's father and mother. She can't leave them so Luna leaves the group to stay with Alex's family. Meribian Robbery and the Cave of Trial Arrived in Meribia, Nash split from the group and staying in Meribia and hanging out in Black Rose Street for a while. Also, Alex meet one of the legendary Four Heroes and the governor of Meribia, Mel de Alkirk. The group then makes their way to the jewel store to sell the dragon diamond. The owner of the shop, Dross amazed for the astonishment of the diamond. After gave the diamond, Dross tell them to wait while he get the money from his safe in other room. But soon they realized that they have been scammed. So the group chases Droll to the sewer where they face the Water Dragon. Not long, Dross has been captured and he surrender and gave them the money. Alex and Ramus split their money into half and Ramus is overjoyed. They eventually meet Nash again and Nash sensed that Alex has a talent to learn magic. Nash encourage him to learn magic at Magical City of Vane. Alex agreed to him. But Ramus cannot join Alex anymore because magic is beyond his grasp. He attempt to find what's in his reach and he intend to find it out on his own. After splitting with Ramus, they begin their journey to the Transmission Springs at far south of Meribia to get to Vane. Arrived in the Transmission Springs, Alex have to enter and tested in the Cave of Trial before he can enter the magic city while Nash will waiting for Alex at the exit. The Cave of Trial will determine if a person have a enough magic power to enter Vane. When the person have defeated enough monsters and reach the exit at the other side, the trial will be completed. In the cave, Alex have to face the Bronze Dogs and the Truffle Troubler. And at last, Alex reached the exit and enter the Vane and meet with Nash. Magic Guild of Vane In the magical city of Vane, Alex go to the Silver Spire. But suddenly the Dragon Ring just glimmered all of a sudden just when they're in the spire. In Silver Spire, Alex meet with Mia Ausa, the daughter of Lemia Ausa, the city's ruler and one of the legendary Four Heroes. Mia has been worried about her mother, saying that her mother is acting weird. Even the townspeople said that she's always acting weird. At the guild, Alex meet with Nash. Because of the problem that Alex has a problem to get in the guild, Nash take Alex right to the master Ghaleon. As Ghaleon notice the problem, he will talk to the leader of the guild, Lemia herself. He's also interested to see how much power does Alex possess. Therefore Ghaleon give Alex an assigment to prove his worth. Then, Alex asks Ghaleon's assistant, Glumm for more details of the assignment. The assigment is to go to a small fishing village called Lann and at across of the village, there's an island where there's a man that proclaims himself to be a next Dragonmaster. Ghaleon thinks that he is an impostor certainly, the impostor also harass the village Lann almost daily. So Ghaleon want Alex to care of this nuisance. Nash also join Alex for his quest. The Fake Dragonmaster At Lann, the townspeople are troubled because their fishings are no good ever since that fake Dragonmaster came. Alex and the others meet Jessica, the junior priestess. She heard that there's a evil man that keep torturing the townspeople of Lann. She wants to get to the bottom of this problem. She said that she had a fight with a 'jerk' in Nanza, so to blow off some steam she invites Alex and the others join her to solve this weird event in the village. Alex agreed to join her. Arrived at the island across the village, the group makes their way to the cave and face the fake dragonmaster, Zoc. After Zoc has beaten, he tells that his not actually a dragonmaster and promise that he will stop being a evil man. As he run away, the group makes his way back to the village. Jessica said that she had a fun time for the little adventure and she split from the group. Development Lunar: The Silver Star was developed by in an attempt to create a role-playing game that would both primarily focus on animation and storytelling. The team turned to scenario writer and novelist Kei Shigema to craft a story that would break away from "hum-drum 'model'" games that "had stories, but had no story-telling". Using the Mega-CD's video playback capabilities, animator and artist Toshiyuki Kubooka oversaw the planning of several video sequences that would be coupled with voice-overs to better tell the story of the Lunar world. Settling on an overall fantasy approach as opposed to the popular role-playing alternative of science fiction, the team wanted to explore the mythos and history of a fictional world that would gradually reveal itself to the player over time. Having mostly developed side-scrollers and scrolling shooters for the Mega Drive and PC Engine, Game Arts formed its subsidiary company, , named for the main character of this title, to oversee most of the game's development. Due to time restraints, nearly one-third of the Lunar project was scrapped by the game's release. Lunar's English version was handled by , a small California-based publisher who had previously localized smaller games for the TurboGrafx-16 and TurboDuo. Their biggest project yet, the team, headed by company vice president and chief writer Victor Ireland, took to the project seriously, often collaborating with the original Japanese team themselves. New gameplay elements were often added at Ireland's request, including new sequences such as playing Alex's harp to awaken Luna near the end of the game. Working Designs also put extra effort into the game's packaging, giving the instruction booklet embossed lettering, and having seven separate stamps, each with different artwork, produced for the front of the game discs to increase collection value. The English script was nearly four megabytes in size, yet Working Designs completed the translation in only eight weeks after a marathon programming session. During translation, the developers did find time to inject some of their own humour in to the game's text, dropping in sentences such as Have you ever tried swimming in lemon jello?, and numerous light-hearted pop culture references not seen in the original version, including allusions to American commercials, celebrities, colloquialisms, products, and role-playing game clichés. Audio The music for Lunar: The Silver Star was composed by Noriyuki Iwadare, Hiroshi Fujioka, Isao Mizoguchi, and Yoshiaki Kubodera, who utilized the Mega-CD's sound capabilities to create CD-quality redbook audio. The game features the opening theme "Lunar", performed by Mayumi Sudou in the original Japanese version. The English version, "Fighting Through the Darkness", is a slightly arranged piece performed by vocalist Shiya Almeda which features new lyrics by Victor Ireland, who intended the song to sound less "lovey-dovie" with a greater "sense of urgency". The original ending theme, "Sensitive Dream", was performed by Kikuko Inoue, and was featured in the game's television commercial in Japan. This song was absent from the North American version entirely, and was replaced by an instrumental piece. On April 22, 1992, the Lunar: The Silver Star Original Soundtrack was released exclusively in Japan by Toshiba-EMI Records, two months before the actual release of the game. The album features full versions of the Japanese opening and ending themes, as well as karaoke arrangements. Most of the game's background themes are presented as multi-song medleys rather than separate tracks. Although an official North American version was never released, many of the songs present on the album were featured as special arrangements on the bonus soundtrack found in the Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete collector's edition, including the English opening theme. Lunar: The Silver Star Story Original Soundtrack'' tracklist''' Voice Both the Japanese and English adaptations of Lunar: The Silver Star contain roughly fifteen minutes of spoken dialogue from a number of prominent voice actors. Though the game has a number of main and supporting characters, only five are actually voiced during specific story sequences. The Japanese version features Kikuko Inoue as both Alex and Luna, Rei Sakuma as Nall, Kōichi Kitamura as the white dragon Quark, and Rokurō Naya as Ghaleon. The English version comprised mostly new talent and associates of Working Designs' staff, such as a young Ashley Parker Angel as Alex, Rhonda Gibson as Luna, Jackie Powers as Nall, Hal Delahousse as Quark, and John Truitt as Ghaleon. While the entire Japanese cast was replaced for the game's remake on the PlayStation, all of the original English cast would return to reprise their roles. Reception Lunar: The Silver Star was well received in Japan, selling an estimated 100,000 copies, its entire production run, in its first year after release, nearly as much as the Mega CD itself. It is considered the Mega-CD's first hit game, which Sega credits solely for pushing the system's sales in that region. The game remains the best-selling Mega CD title of all time in Japan, and second highest selling worldwide behind Sonic the Hedgehog CD. Readers of Japanese magazine Megadrive Beep voted it the number one Mega Drive role-playing game for seventeen straight months before being trumped by Shining Force II. '''Review Score' ' *Electronic Gaming Monthly - 7.6 / 10 * GameFan - 97% *Game Informer - 8.5 / 10 *GamePro - 4.5 / 5 *Game Players - 79% *VideoGames - 9 / 10 The English version released the following year met with a similar response, with Skid of ''GameFan magazine calling it "far and away the best RPG I have ever played in English", praising the game's graphics, sound, and story as "well conceived and executed". The magazine's editors would later name it as the greatest role-playing game of 1993.GamePro similarly reviewed it as "not just the best Sega CD RPG ever, but one of the best on any Sega system", giving particular merit to the game's translation. Game Players described it as a "solid RPG, and well worth your time" but found fault in the game's small character graphics that "look like every other RPG" and the virtually non-existent replay value. Electronic Gaming Monthly granted the game an average 7.6 or "worthy" rating, commending the game's background music but dismissing its battle sequences as "dull".In 2006, Lunar ranked 113th in EGM and 1UP.com's "The Greatest 200 Videogames of Their Time", celebrating the two-hundred games that were considered the best during their original release. Gallery